A very English cricket blog by Patrick Kidd. Subscribe to a feed of this Times Online blog at http://timesonline.typepad.com/line_and_length/rss.xml
 Eighty-three years ago, when Jack Hobbs was trying and struggling to match WG Grace's record of first-class hundreds, there was a famous London newspaper headline saying simply "Hobbs fails again". I could be wrong, but I think it was after he had made a fifty. Hobbs took a month to get the historic hundred, with expectation building to fever pitch, and when it eventually came at Taunton there was immense relief, especially as he had been 91 not out overnight.
Will we have the same frenzied anticipation for Mark Ramprakash's historic 100th hundred (read this for more background)? Today was his first chance to advance from 99 to 100 but he nicked James Tomlinson behind and will have to wait at least another 24 hours for his next chance. No doubt Ramprakash will get there at some point and probably very soon.
Speculation in one press box last week was that Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, had told Ramprakash that he had to get the historic ton at the Oval otherwise he wouldn't get a benefit dinner this year. "Not true, but a very good line," was Sheldon's response when I put it to him.
It's a bowler's paradise in the County Championship today. Despite there being glorious sun over most of the country, none of the batsmen seem to want to stay out in it. Consider these scores, all of them on day 1 of the match: At Old Trafford, Lancashire 143 all out (first-ball duck for Flintoff; Mark Davies 7-33, Collingwood 2-16 and, just to buck the trend, S Harmison 1-49. Retirement can't come soon enough...), Durham 114 all out (Anderson 4-18, Flintoff 4-21); At Trent Bridge, Notts 202 all out, Kent 33-4 (having been five for four; Sidebottom has figures of 6-2-8-3); At Taunton, Somerset 126 all out (James Tomlinson 8-46), Hampshire 194-3 (bucking the trend thanks to Pietersen's 100 but they were 3-2); At Derby, Derbyshire 270 all out (a recovery from 128-7), Warwickshire 14-0; and at Chelmsford, Middlesex 263-7 (Strauss 88, Nel 0-61)
So that's five games and 64 wickets that fell in one day. Fantastic to see for those of us fed up with it being a batsman's game (and just to complete the effect, Rajasthan bowled out for 103 in the IPL, too).
I'm at Northampton today - "Described as the Naples of the Midlands - as often as Naples is called the Northampton of Lombardy," as the recently departed Humphrey Lyttelton once said - and the home side have made a pig's ear of their first innings. From 33-1 overnight, they were 33-4 by the time I entered the press box five minutes' late, seven down at lunch and bowled out for 168 soon afterwards. As I type Worcestershire are 50 without loss in reply. Which leads to a convenient reminder about Times Online's session-by-session reports from all our writers in the field, which you can read here.
The match is being watched by Geoff Miller, the National Selector, although I'm not sure who he was wanting to see. Monty Panesar is the big draw but at the start of the day it didn't seem likely that he'd bowl until well after tea. Maybe Miller has seen Northants bat before and had an inkling. Of the other possible England candidates, Kabir Ali (surely well down the fast bowler's pecking order now) took three wickets and Steven Davies, the promising young Worcs keeper, held six catches. Despite that, it is more or less a given that Tim Ambrose will be the England keeper this summer.
 The shy and retiring Andre Nel, a favourite of this blog, has played only four games for Essex so far this season but already he is two thirds of the way to a ban after picking up six penalty points under the ECB code of conduct during last week's match against Derbyshire.
Gentle Andre was reported by the umpires for two separate breaches of the code, one for using language or a gesture that is obscene or insulting and one for throwing the ball at a player or official in an inappropriate manner. Both are believed to have involved Steve Stubbings, who was struck on the legs in anger by Nel, although it is more than possible that Nel was actually aiming at the stumps.
Should he pick up another black mark, Nel will face an immediate suspension, something not to have happened to anyone since the ECB brought in the penalty points system. The dilemma, though, is that he only has five more games this season before giving way to Danish Kaneria. If he hasn't found some way of being reprimanded before his final game, against Middlesex, then his fans will feel rather let down. Mind you, with only 16 runs conceded in five overs, Nel was the main reason Essex beat Sussex yesterday.
Don't forget that if you are stuck in the office and want to keep tabs on the county matches, we are providing session-by-session and instant close-of-play reports on Times Online from our writers in the field.
How quickly things go out of date. A few days ago I wrote this piece about Ramprakash being on 97 first-class hundreds as the season began. Well, we're one day into the new season and he is now on 98, having made 102 at the Oval today. Chances are probably quite high that he'll be on 99 by the end of the week.
Ramprakash's renaissance in the past couple of years has been astounding. To recap the basic facts for overseas readers and England selectors: since the start of the 2003 season he has scored 8,892 first-class runs, made 38 hundreds and averaged just under 85 runs per innings. In the 2006 and 2007 seasons he scored more than 2,000 runs and averaged more than 100 each time. His failings at the highest level are well known, but he has looked a different man since being dropped in 2002. If he doesn't get an England recall this summer, you have to wonder what else he could have done.
The LV County Championship starts today and, for the first time, you will be able to read reports of the matches as they happen rather than having to wait until the next day to find out how Derbyshire did against Middlesex, or how Essex were skittled after lunch by Cheam Girls School.
Times Online has begged and cajoled its platoon of writers to arrive on time, stay sober and file a news report at lunchtime, teatime and at the very drawing of stumps for every championship match this season. You can read them by clicking here.
Times Online: it's just like being at the cricket only without the risk of sunburn.
And so the 2008 domestic season begins. The first matches in the LV County Championship start tomorrow, but I made my season debut at Fenner's yesterday for the final day of Cambridge University v Essex. In a rain-troubled match that was always heading for a draw, there were a few moments of brightness, not least the aggressive hitting of Jason Gallian, Essex's new signing and the former England opener, who made 79 off 59 balls.
Yet Gallian's batting was one of the few areas where a comparison could be drawn with the brave new world of the Indian Premier League. The players still wore white, there was scarcely any advertising (one billboard advertising the Spirit of Cricket was broken in half and just said "Spirit"), the crowd numbered little more than a dozen and the players happily mingled with them in the Pavilion during the intervals and when they were waiting to bat. Technology was more or less absent - no wireless internet for the two journalists present (in fact, there wasn't even a press box) and if I wanted to plug my laptop in I was told to use the socket in the umpires' room but not when they were using it.
I know I'm an archaic old dinosaur, but isn't this what cricket is all about and what makes it wonderful? The modern world can go hang, with its cheerleaders, music and razzmatazz. Give me an open field, a well-stocked bar and 22 men in white and I'll be happy.
Headline writers were denied the ideal excuse for a bit of wit at Lord's today. "Aga too hot for Onions" would have been a good headline if Graham Onions, the MCC fast bowler, hadn't fallen to Ryan Harris instead. Rageb Aga, Sussex's fast-medium bowler, will have to wait for his day in the pun. Perhaps Will Beer, the young Sussex leg spinner, will be used in a headline instead if MCC crumble on a drying pitch on the final day. "Beer and sun prove too much for MCC"?
 Of course, the Sussex leg spinner that most fear is Mushtaq Ahmed, who will soon join the county for his sixth season with them, having taken 459 wickets in the previous five as Sussex won the championship three times. Yet Chris Adams, the Sussex captain, said that the club's success was due to more than just one man. "I'd like to think that Mushy relies on other players as much as we rely on him," he said. "Some of the catches Richard Montgomerie has taken off Mushy's bowling have been ridiculous. And while he has been a gift for us, if he went to another county it wouldn't mean they would win the championship." He's right: in Mushy's eight years with Somerset, they won diddly-squat.
Mushtaq could have missed this season after the row about him playing in the Indian Cricket League. At the eleventh hour the Pakistan and English boards agreed he could play. "The right decision has been made, but it's been a dramatic few weeks for everyone," Adams said. "Mushy has given so much to the championship and the game in general that it would have been a travesty if he had been banned."
Normally when news is announced on a Saturday, the one day when national cricket journalists attempt to spend time with their families, the person or body announcing it will be hoping that no one notices. Even Sunday journalists will usually have decided what they are writing about before Saturday, and it would have to be pretty stonking news to get much coverage. Which explains why an ECB press release yesterday announcing 17 changes to the domestic game next season got next to no attention in today's papers. And yet, reading through the press release when I got back from visiting my sister in Bath last night, there appears little that is not very good news for the game.
The biggie is the fact that the ECB has decided to abandon the system introduced in the Friends Provident Trophy last year of allowing players to challenge the decisions of umpires and refer them to the TV umpire. This was disliked by umpires, players and fans (Chris Adams, the first captain to dispute a decision under the scheme, apologised to the umpire before doing it) and none of the referrals resulted in a decision being reversed. This is good news, even if the ECB must explain the abandoning of the policy on unsuitable technology rather than simply that it is against the spirit of the game.
It is also a good policy, I think, to abandon the use of floodlights in the county championship. Players were finding it too hard to see the red ball under lights. But as a fan I want to see more cricket played, so perhaps there should have been guidance to umpires not to offer the light as readily as they have done (the farcical scenes against Sri Lanka in the Lord's Test this summer being a case in point when the England batsmen came off three times in hardly dangerous light). My view here is that if the batsmen are well set and having few difficulties playing the ball, they should be told to play on even if it is harder to see it.
Other changes include reducing the number of overs a day in the county championship to 96, but increasing the penalty for unbowled overs in the allotted time from a half-point to one full point per over, thus ensuring that bowlers and fielding captains don't dawdle. Also, the ECB has adopted the new rules used in international matches about replacing the white ball in a 50-over game after 34 overs and about the use of powerplays.
Guidelines to help umpires to judge wides in one-day games will be painted on the wicket; and ties in the Twenty20 group stage will be decided on the results between the tied counties rather than on most wins (a flaw that was shown up in the rain-affected competition this year).
There are other sensible proposals in the document that the ECB deserves praise for. It's a shame they don't trumpet them a bit more - as far as I can make out, the press release is not even on the ECB website yet!
 Another story I missed while Sellotaping my cousin naked to a windmill in Norfolk: Alex Loudon has given up his cricket career to become a businessman at the age of only 27. Loudon, you will recall, was touted as a spinning all-rounder for England (he even had a doosra, it was claimed) but he played just the one ODI, was run out without facing a ball, took 0 for 36 in six overs and has slipped back down the queue. A promising career in cricket has thus been cast aside for a job in the City.
King Cricket has done a brilliant rant against Loudon, which I think is worth sharing: "This is why we shouldn't allow Old Etonians to become professional cricketers. What kind of a person gives up professional cricket in favour of 'a career in business'? Well congratulations, Alex. You'll be shaking hands with people for a living before you know it. You can spend the next 30-odd years staring at spreadsheets and having meetings.
"You can buy a pointless grey car and put your frigging golf clubs in the back. You can get a Mont Blanc pen and tell people about how you've got a Mont Blanc pen, watching their eyes glaze over before you've even finished the word 'Blanc'. You can go to bars with your mates, drink terrible alcohol at inflated prices and talk about how you can drive from one miserable office full of idiots to a different miserable office full of idiots faster than they can, learning to distinguish between different pointless grey cars in the process.
"We're sure you'll cheer just as enthusiastically when you get that all-important third quarter contract as you did when you clean-bowled someone in a vital match. We're sure the guys in Human Resources will give you just as much of an ovation as when you single-handedly won a cup match in front of a sell-out crowd."
Continue reading "Loudon sells out" »
It may have been watched at the Oval by no more than a couple of hundred people, to judge from the TV pictures of Lancashire's run-chase against Surrey yesterday, but the final day of the 2007 County Championship was thrilling. Sussex polished off Worcestershire early, as expected, which ended Durham's slim chances of staying top of the table, but if Lancashire could score a whopping 489 in the fourth innings against Surrey, 462 of them on the last day, then they would be the champions for the first time since 1934.
How close it was, how close. ECB flunkies had spent most of the afternoon sat in their car on a lay-by on the M23, prepared to dash north or south to present the trophy and cheque depending on what happened at the Oval. At lunch, Lancashire were 178 for two; at tea, with two wickets falling in the penultimate over before the break, they were 307 for five. Dominic Cork (47) and Saj Mahmood (26 - those are runs, not years, in brackets) took them agonisingly near but when Cork was bowled by Murtaza Hussain, the chase ended 25 runs short of victory. What a finish to a fascinating season.
It may even get a paragraph or two in tomorrow's papers, although Chelsea are playing Manchester United so don't expect too much.
 Lancashire fans will look back on this game with regrets. If only for the odd slip, they could have been chasing a much smaller target (failing to take advantage of an easy chance to run out Mark Ramprakash 196 runs before he finally went, for instance) but they should be proud of their team's efforts yesterday. Magnanimously, King Cricket, a Lancashire fan, has awarded Mark Ramprakash a Grimlock, a robot-cum-dinosaur, as a prize for scoring 2,000 runs in a season yet again, the first time in first-clas history that anyone has done that twice in a row.
It is rare to find a Lancashire supporter praying for rain at the end of the season. Normally, bad weather in September is enough to dent Lancashire's hopes of a first championship title since 1934, but all Lanky fans will be hoping tonight that it comes down in buckets. In Hove, anyway, where Sussex need to take only five Worcestershire wickets tomorrow on the last day of the season to win another title.
Sussex appear to be the champions elect, but Durham beat Kent with ease today to move to the top of the table and will seal their first title if Sussex don't win. And Lancashire? Well all they need is 462 runs on the last day of the season one of the country's best batting wickets. May as well have a go for it. How wonderful that we can come to the end of a county season and still have three teams in the hunt - and how English that it could all be decided by bad weather.
Many congratulations to Mark Ramprakash, who made his second hundred of the match against Lancashire today, his tenth of the season and went past 2000 runs for the second year in a row. And yet he still won't be named for England's winter tour, poor thing.
Essex have signed Jason Gallian, the former England opening batsman, for next season from Nottinghamshire. Gallian has turned down the chance of first division cricket next season to play the senior role at a county that has struggled for runs this season. With the retirements at the start of the season of Andy Flower, the England batting coach, and Ronnie Irani, Essex have been deprived of experienced batsmen who made 2,500 runs between them last season.
The regular loss to England duty of Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara has also left the county's batting looking frail and heaped pressure on the young captain, Mark Pettini, whose form has suffered. It has been two months since Essex last made 300 in the first innings of a championship match. Gallian, who played three Tests in 1995, has turned down an approach from Glamorgan to join Essex. His place at Nottinghamshire was under threat from the impressive Samit Patel and Will Jefferson, who ironically left Essex last season in frustration at the lack of opportunities.
Also moving clubs is Usman Afzaal, who has signed for Surrey. Afzaal is another former Notts batsman, although he has been at Northamptonshire for the past three seasons. He has only played eight games this season, scoring 570 runs at an average of 36, but says that he hopes that another change of club will enable him to reboot his England career, which amounted to three Ashes Tests in 2001. Good luck to Afzaal, who is one of the nicer blokes on the circuit, but he should be wary: scoring stacks of runs at Surrey has not helped Mark Ramprakash's hopes of an England recall.
Continuing our exclusive serialisation of Ronnie Irani's memories of life on the county circuit, thanks to Essex CCC and boredfingers.com, his sponsor. Read Part 1 here
On his Test debut, in 1996 against India: "I remember turning up a couple of days earlier to Edgbaston for the preparation and even though you've been selected for the squad you still feel like you are on trial. You end up being completely knackered before the Test match begins because you feel that you still need to impress the captain and coach.
"In the hotel the night before the game we all gathered for a meal with the Chairman of Selectors, Raymond Illingworth. Mike Atherton (the captain) came up to me beforehand and said 'Good luck tomorrow', so I was really happy with him saying that, especially as he never had too many nice words to say about me. But I did take heart from those words as they were probably a first from him to me ... but unfortunately a last as well!
Continue reading "Retro Ronnie part 2" »
Despite a tough upbringing - "my father was a coalminer, he was picking at seams long before Inzamam-ul-Haq" was an opening gambit in his speech to the Cricket Writers Club on Friday - Ronnie Irani has always been a colourful fun-loving character. To mark his retirement from county cricket this season, Line & Length has been given a unique insight into what makes a Ronnie, thanks to Essex County Cricket Club and boredfingers.com, his sponsor. There will be more memories next week.
In his first season with Essex in 1994, Irani made his first championship century as Essex chased 405 for victory against Worcestershire, winning off the final ball. Irani recalls going out to bat third wicket down with Graham Gooch, who got a double hundred, and that there was plenty of needle: "An attempted sweep top-edged into my chin and Steve Rhodes [the Worcs keeper] said something like 'I hope that hurt'. Goochie overheard it and as a fatherly figure said to Rhodes 'what did you say?'. Rhodes soon shut up."
A month later, Irani twice dismissed Brian Lara for Warwickshire. "This match was a massive highlight for me," Irani said. "because it was Brian Lara's summer of runs. It seemed like he scored a million runs that year coming to Warwickshire after scoring his then-record Test score of 375. I got him out first innings caught by Nick Knight at slip trying to hit me out of Birmingham and I was delighted because it was a real scalp. Then I got him out second innings too – lbw – in the evening and as I was walking back to the boundary edge one of the home supporters in the stand shouted out 'Irani, you ****er, I've finished work early to see Brian Lara bat and you've got him out!'."
A few weeks later, Essex played Middlesex and Irani managed to get into a dressing-room brawl: "Me and Michael Kasprowicz [then an Essex fast bowler] went out for some nets after a day's play. When we got back into the dressing-room there was a rugby player in there who had been drinking all day – absolutely trolleyed – and had somehow managed to get in. He started to abuse me and Kasper and I said to him 'look mate, we don't want any trouble'.
"I thought that might calm the situation down and then he'd go but to those words he landed a massive great haymaker straight on my left eye and it swelled up immediately. I've worn contact lenses all my career and as he hit me it actually popped out but I managed to catch it in my left hand. So I'm bundling with this bloke, holding on to my lens – because they weren't disposable in those days so cost about £200 – and skating around on my spikes like on ice; Kasper grabbed hold of him as well and he's on spikes too so we are all over the place. There were glasses in the corner for after-match drinks and I'm thinking this is going to be carnage but we managed to get him out of the dressing room, I kept hold of my contact lens and gave him a bit of a send-off in polite terms!
"Once everything had calmed down I'm left thinking 'I've got to bat tomorrow'. By the next day I couldn't see out of my eye, even though I'd iced it all night, but I managed to just squeeze my contact lens in – I don't know why because I could hardly see out of it. When I went out to bat Phil Tufnell proceeded to bowl left-arm over the wicket, purposely throwing the ball up into the sun. So there I was baking in the sun with one closed eye and Tuffers giving it extra air but I was fortunate enough to score 102 not out."
In 1995, Irani made his first one-day century for Essex, off just 47 balls (two more than the record at the time), against Gloucestershire. "Essex had a fantastic week that year at Cheltenham," Irani said. "We had a few drinks in Montpellier Wine Bar at a time when I was full of life and full of energy. Now it's two beers or two glasses of wine and I'm tucked up in bed by half nine like a boring old git. We'd just finished a four-day game and had worked our socks off at Cheltenham without getting any reward out of it (Gloucestershire won by three wickets) so were a bit down. It was a Saturday so we decided to make a night of it – I can remember it as if it was yesterday. The following day I came into bat still steaming of Shiraz and I hit 100 off 47 balls. I remember middling every delivery. I don't remember them coming out of the bowler's hand but I remember them going into the stands."
Just got home from the annual Cricket Writers Club dinner at which Adil Rashid, the Yorkshire leg spinner, was named "young player of the year". Some pretty good players have won the award in the events 50-year history with the likes of Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad, Andrew Flintoff and James Anderson winning in the past decade. Let's hope that Adil, who is tipped to make his first senior tour this winter, lives up to their standard rather than emulating the odd duff tip like Paul Franks and Rikki Clarke.
Bit disappointing that Yorkshire, who were playing Sussex at Hove, didn't release Rashid to come up to London to receive the award in person. Even when Sussex wrapped up an easy win early in the afternoon, Yorkshire still wouldn't give their lad permisson to have an evening off.
Ronnie Irani was the guest speaker and gave a good speech that barely managed to stay on the right side of good taste. Beginning with jokes about Dermot Reeve's alleged drugs habit received healthy laughs ("it all started at school when he was made to do 50 lines"), while there were embarrassed sniggers when he referred to the elderly luminaries on the chairman's table as "the cast of Last of the Summer Wine". By the time he got to a line about Phil Tufnell being called "the cat" because "he can lick his own bollocks" he had probably strayed across the line.
Still, Ronnie is never shy about giving his views so check back here on Monday for the first extracts from his reminiscences for the Essex Cricket magazine.
CMJ has spoken. The wise sage has contemplated the 18 best-of-all-time county XIs assembled by Times writers and has judged that the Yorkshire team of Hutton, Sutcliffe, Vaughan, Leyland, Lehmann, Hirst, Rhodes, Wood, Verity, Trueman and Bowes is the strongest and will be picked to play against the Martian XI at Headingley.
Many congratulations to John Westerby, the Yorkshire selector, although he did have a rather stronger pack to pick from than those of us selecting a county to the east of London.
At least one England player emerged as a winner from the otherwise disastrous World Cup in the spring. Essex have announced today that Graham Gooch, their former captain, is to sponsor their academy at Chelmsford with £30,000 a year of his own dough earned during the competition. He is also continuing his scholarship programme in which he pays for talented youngsters to get experience of conditions overseas during the winter.
"With the money raised on my successful World Cup cruise I have been looking to support the future of Essex cricket in an enhanced way," says Gooch, which raises worrying images of exactly how he raised so much money from cruising the Caribbean. For some reason, I have an image of Goochie in a cheap sequined tuxedo serenading wealthy American widows with You Are Always on my Mind while John Childs and Peter Such pass around a hat for donations. Still, if it produces a couple more Cooks and Boparas then all credit to Goochie. Maybe he can get Ronnie Irani to accompany him on the harmonica on his next tour?
As seems to be the theme these days, we have been compiling more lists for Times Online: this time, it is the best county cricket XIs. Eighteen of our writers were invited to pick the greatest players to have represented their favourite counties - and then to pick their favourite players.
It was easy to feel inadequate as an Essex fan when I saw lists that began "Sutcliffe, Hutton, Vaughan..." or had a bowling attack featuring "Marshall, Roberts, Warne", but I discovered that my own county had some pretty fantastic players and not just from the past 25 years of success. Even unfashionable counties have XI excellent ambassadors: Gloucestershire can boast Grace, Hammond, Jessop, Abbas; the Northants selector was able to leave out Lillee, Ambrose and Hussey.
Read my introduction here and then go to your favourite counties to see whether you agree or leave comments here.
Many congratulations to Ottis Gibson, the veteran West Indian, who took all ten Hampshire wickets today, the first man to do that in county cricket since Richard Johnson 13 years ago. The achievement is a rarity in itself, but few would have laid money on the 38-year-old Durham bowler, who many thought was winding down time this season before heading for a coaching job somewhere.
Taking all ten wickets in an innings has happened 79 times in first-class cricket but many have got close. Last season, I was reporting from Chelmsford when Zaheer Khan took the first nine Essex wickets in a championship match. Play ended for the day soon afterwards and there was great tension the next morning to see whether the Worcestershire and India bowler could finish the job. It wasn't long the next morning before Darren Gough gave Zaheer his chance, edging behind down the leg side... but Steven Davies dropped the catch! Zaheer failed to find his line and ended with nine for 138, Essex having added 97 for the last wicket before Matt Mason finally got Gough.
I was told later by Andy Flower, the Essex middle-order batsman, that the ball had been swinging wildly for Zaheer and Gough had been sent out with the express purpose of losing the ball. And he succeeded in that, hitting a huge six out of the ground and into the river. Facing a different ball, Gough made 50 off 33 balls and Ravi Bopara finished on 67 not out to prick Zaheer's dreams
Glad to find out that Adam Hollioake's denial to Line and Length yesterday that he was going to become captain of Essex wasn't a filthy fib. Instead, Mark Pettini was appointed today as the youngest county captain in England and Essex's youngest for more than 70 years. Good luck to him.
Meanwhile, at a grey and dank Ford County Ground in Chelmsford, Essex are about to play Hampshire in a Twenty20 match. I thought I was on to a scoop when an announcement came on the Tannoy just now asking for the Hampshire coach driver to return to his vehicle urgently. Given that the Hampshire coach was stoned by Middlesex fans the other week, I thought Essex supporters had tried to break the tournament record for most smashed windows on an opposition vehicle. Instead, he had just parked on a double yellow line.
Grey clouds over Chelmsford today as Ronnie Irani, the captain who was for a spell the best all-rounder in the country, announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season. He popped up into the press box to share some final thoughts, including this story about his first day at Essex, having joined as a 22 -year-old from Lancashire in 1994: "I had no idea where Essex was - I just knew it was somewhere near London - but it took me three trains and two buses to get to Chelmsford. These days parents would drive their kids the length of the country to get them a new job, but I set off from Bolton with five bags on my shoulders and no idea where I was going. Naturally, the train I was on derailed at Sheffield, so we had to get taken by bus to Nottingham, where I got a train to London, but it didn't come in at Euston, as I'd planned.
"I had no clue where I was so I called the county and said 'I'm lost but I think I'm at somewhere called St Pancreas' (I'd done a bit of science at school so I recognised the word Pancreas). Eventually they were able to get me to understand how to use the Tube across London to get to Liverpool Street for the train to Chelmsford. I arrived saddled down with luggage, like Paddington Bear, but full of hope."
Farewell, Ronnie. It's been fun having you.
There was a wonderful display of petty British officialdom on display at Northamptonshire today. Some 25 frozen souls were huddled in the pavilion, noses pressed to the windows as they watched their county play in a cold championship match against Essex. Some had brought their sandwiches and Thermos flasks inside with them, which was strictly verboten under the rules pinned on the wall that said you could only consume food and drink you had bought from the official Northamptonshire caterer.
Naturally, it wasn't long before some club official noticed and marched over to tick them off.
"Now you know you aren't meant to eat food in here that you haven't bought from over there," he said, pointing to the serving window where a matron was dispensing plates of chips for £1.50. "But I am prepared to compromise with you."
His compromise was to erect a screen halfway down the Long Room. "Those people on this side," he said, "can eat food that they have brought in, while those on the other side must buy it over there." Then came the coup de grace.
"But I'm warning you," he said. "You can only eat food that you made yourselves. We will not allow you to buy food from shops or garages and bring it in here." There was no mention of whether the bread for their sandwiches had to be home-baked, or the lettuce grown in their own gardens, but I bet it isn't long before this chap is employed by the ICC.
Strange things are afoot in the county championship, and it is only the third round of matches. Sussex, the defending champions, have lost their second match by an innings, the walloping by Warwickshire last week followed by a bigger drubbing by Kent today; the pitch at Taunton, relaid because it was too benign, has now given up 2500 runs (and 12 hundreds) in four innings; Monty Panesar has held two catches in an innings; seven batsmen have already posted 400 runs this season; four of the top ten bowlers are spinners, reflecting the glorious weather, and two of the others (Harmison and Hoggard) will be sharing the new ball at the first Test in two weeks.
And to think that the World Cup almost made me fall out of love with cricket.
Never mind the World Cup, the English county season is almost upon us and the announcement this afternoon of the MCC side to play Sussex, last year's champions, next week brought it closer to home. And what a team the MCC, in consultation with the England selectors, have chosen:
Alastair Cook (captain), Tim Bresnan, Nick Compton, Steven Davies, Alex Gidman, Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Will Jefferson, Graham Onions, Adil Rashid, Owais Shah, Zoheb Sharif.
Five of them have played for England, with three likely to be chosen for the first Test of the summer, against West Indies in only six weeks, while Davies and Rashid were the most exciting cricketers I saw last season. If they can develop as hoped, they will be in the England side by the 2009 Ashes. I'm suddenly starting to get quite excited about this summer...
Exciting news from Lahore-on-sea, the English south coast resort formerly known as Hove: Saqlain Mushtaq has signed for Sussex as cover for Mushtaq Ahmed, his fellow former Pakistan spinner who is in the Caribbean coaching the present Pakistan side, which includes Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, another Sussex overseas player.
Saqlain will actually be allowed to stay on when Ahmed returns as he is about to qualify as a British citizen. "The prospect of two Mushtaqs bowling in tandem is mouth-watering," says Mark Robinson, Sussex's manager. Terrifying for all the other sides, more like. Saqlain was one of the main reasons why Surrey won three championships at the turn of the century and Ahmed took an astonishing amount of wickets as Sussex won last season. Expect turning pitches galore.
Hampshire have to be the bookmakers' favourites for the County Championship this coming season if rumours that Stuart Clark is about to be signed by the county are true. Clark was bafflingly left out of Australia's World Cup squad this week but says that Shane Warne, with whom he shared 49 wickets during the Ashes series this winter, is trying to bring him to Southampton.
Clark has played at Middlesex, with moderate success, but has developed quickly as a nagging fast-medium bowler and would be an asset to any club. Should he reach the Rose Bowl for the start of the season, and with Justin Langer due to be opening for Somerset in April and Phil Jaques for Worcestershire, the English County Championship could be a better place to watch Australia's finest players than the World Cup.
John Emburey doesn't think we should be so welcoming, however. The Middlesex director of cricket feels that English counties have helped promising young Aussies, such as Mike Hussey and Matthew Hayden, to hone their game and then beat us. He thinks we should not be so generous. Maybe he's just sore about losing Clark. What do you think?
 There's an excellent piece on the Test Match Special blog by Kevin Howells concerning Yorkshire signing Jacques Rudolph on a Kolpak agreement. When I first heard the story, I assumed that Rudolph was turning his back on South Africa for good and that he was even going to try to kick-start his career by qualifying as an Englishman, like Kevin Pietersen. He has been the victim of positive discrimination before and perhaps he felt that he would get few chances in South Africa. Rudolph is only 25 and could still have a lengthy Test career ahead elsewhere.
Howells suggests that he may return in the myrtle green of his native country, however. Rudolph last played for South Africa five months ago and under the strict letter of the law, he should not be allowed to play as a Kolpak man until a year has elapsed since his last international match. Rudolph's agents say that as he has effectively retired, that doesn't apply. But there is nothing legally enforceable, Howells says, about Rudolph's statement of intent. He is allowed to go back on it and evidence suggests that he is using a three-year stay in Yorkshire to further his international ambitions as a Protea.
Continue reading "Rudolph the turncoat" »
There's nothing like thumping a fellow cricketer to build brotherly love. Almost ten years after punching Ronnie Irani during a one-day game (accidentally, he says), Darren Thomas was welcomed by the Essex captain today as he moved counties from Glamorgan.
Continue reading "Forgive and forget" »
For some reason, Line and Length is jam-packed with stories about county cricket just as the biggest Test series of the past 18 months is about to get under way (see yesterday's offerings). Says something about my priorities I guess. Anyway, tonight's story is a heart-warming one about the lengths that the president of a county will go to save his starving flock.
 Robin Marlar, supremo at Sussex and former president of MCC, has donated his 1979 Mercedes to an auction to raise funds for young cricketers at Hove. That's the cover story, anyway. My guess is that the car was a clincher in persuading Chris Adams not to move to Yorkshire. Perhaps Marlar threw in a glove compartment full of Richard Clayderman cassettes too as an extra sweetener. Expect to see Adams driving around Brighton in it next season, plinky-plonky piano music blaring out of the windows.
Bidding is going on at this very moment. Apparently the car would be worth £5,000 if it was in decent knick. I'll report an update tomorrow on whether anyone bought it.
Update: The Marlar-mobile sold last night for £4,000, with a separate bid of £600 for the personalised number-plate (it's his wife's initials).
There's not much cricket on at the moment (honest) so time for a quick diversion to the English county championship and this extremely revealing interview given to the Middlesex Supporters website by David "Knocker" Nash, the wicketkeeper.
Great things were expected of Nash after playing 12 Tests for England Under-19 and being selected for England A's tour of Sri Lanka aged 20 in 1998 alongside the likes of Nick Knight, Andrew Flintoff and Ashley Giles. He even kept Chris Read out of the side for one of the three Tests and two of the one-day matches. Since then he has slipped into mediocrity, losing his county place to Ben Scott, which is a shame. He is hardly likely to find favour with the selectors when he calls the England head coach "Drunken Fletcher".
But do read it, if only because it is such a refreshing change from the banal "we've got to put our hands up and come to the party" tripe you get from England cricketers. Among the delightful bits of honesty are pointing out that Scott, his rival for the Middlesex gloves, has made mistakes; admitting that the Middlesex team broke into Ed Smith's suitcase and hung his wife's underwear up in the dressing-room (didn't know Smith was now married but, hey, I didn't invite him to my wedding either) and the revelation that his nickname "Knocker" comes from a superstition early in his career that he had to, er, knock himself off in the gents before going out to bat.
Thanks to Ged Ladd for sending this in. If anyone else has some good stories from the county circuit to divert us during the bleak midwinter, e-mail me on patrick.kidd@thetimes.co.uk
So farewell to 2006 as we head immediately into what the record books will call "2006-07". It has been an interesting summer. Not a classic one, but that was perhaps inevitable after last year, but still one packed with drama and, of course, controversy. The last rites will be read over the England v Pakistan series this week, while England's capitulation against Sri Lanka in the first Test series of the summer seems a disturbingly long time ago.
Sussex were clinical in winning the final game of the season, but any year in which the championship title comes down to the last match is clearly a good one. Congratulations, too, to Worcestershire for snatching the final promotion spot from Essex when I was out of the country and unable to grouse about it. All the papers will look back only at the two Test series when they do end-of-year reviews of the cricketing summer, so instead Line and Length is proud to announce our 2006 county awards:
The Darrell Hair award for race relations
Never mind simmering Islamochristian tension or even the fallout from Hairgate at the Oval, peace, love and tolerance were born again at Hove, also known as Lahore-on-Sea, after Mushtaq Ahmed, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Yasir Arafat did more than most to win Sussex the title, the C&G Trophy and, perhaps more important, Line and Length's title of Team of the Year.
The Steve McQueen award for a great escape
Worcestershire were bottom of the second division of the county championship after two matches, having lost heavily at home to Somerset and Derbyshire. Things did not look good when they travelled to the Oval for their next game and conceded 501 runs to Surrey's first innings. Rain threatened to spoil the game but Surrey gamely set Worcs 285 to win in 32 overs. Thanks to Phil Jaques's 107 off 69 balls they made it and the march towards promotion was under way.
Continue reading "Awards time" »
As expected, Sussex have beaten Notts and wrapped up the county championship before lunch on the third day. The only disappointment is that Mushtaq Ahmed - by a long chalk Sussex's player of the season - could not finish this final innings with all ten wickets. He took the first six to fall before James Kirtley disappointingly snared Paul Franks leg-before. Mushy then took the last three wickets to finish with 9-48 and 13 wickets in the match.
Lancashire might bleat about rain having disrupted their title hopes - and how ironic that they should be thwarted again by rain this morning even on the South Coast - but Sussex have won so many games within three days that Lancs can hardly complain. Even if Hove had had as much rain as Old Trafford, it is likely that Mushy would have had enough time to win all the games.
Notts will be anxiously watching events at Headingley, where Durham have added 170 runs for their seventh wicket and are 38 runs away from reaching 400, securing maximum batting points and ensuring that, if their game with Yorkshire is drawn, Notts are relegated. In the other battle that matters, Essex will be delighted by news of rain this morning at Northampton where Worcestershire were already struggling.
I'll be away from this blog for a couple of days. I'm heading off to Dublin this afternoon where some golf competition is taking place, but please pop back and visit on Monday when I reveal Line and Length's awards of the season. And if you are a Sussex fan and want to crow, click on the comments button below and let us know what you think.
Two days to go in the cricket season, a bit of rain predicted tomorrow and Saturday, but it looks as if Sussex have sewn up the title. Only poor weather at Trent Bridge - and good weather at Southampton - can stop them after Mushtaq Ahmed took eight wickets in 22 overs to leave Notts reeling on 46-4, still 349 runs behind, following on. Lancashire are doing their best to win their final game - although it is odd that they didn't enforce the follow-on having bowled out Hampshire for a first-innings lead of 223 - but it could be all in vain.
Meanwhile, Notts's failure to accrue any batting points could have counted against them in the relegation battle, but Durham, closing on 203-6 against Yorks, look unlikely to get the 400 runs and full batting points that they would have needed to pull last year's champions down in a drawn match.
Meanwhile, Leicestershire's fifth wicket is holding up Essex's push for victory but the visiting side still lead by 260 runs and with Worcestershire struggling, 85 runs behind at the close with all ten Northants wickets standing, it looks good for Ronnie Irani.
Session by session, the final placings in the championship are being worked out. Sussex have taken seven Notts wickets at Trent Bridge and still lead by more than 400 runs; Lancashire are in a similarly strong position, having taken three Hants wickets and lead by 306 runs at tea; Yorkshire declared on 677-7 against Durham and have taken the first of the 20 wickets they need to be sure of staying in the first division (actually, they should just need to take six Durham wickets and draw the match to be safe).
In the second division, Essex lead Leics by 385 runs and have taken two wickets; while Worcs are struggling against the spin of Northants. They have lost six wickets and are still 106 runs adrift.
Hirst's record is safe. Just after lunch, Paul Wiseman, a New Zealand off-break bowler, got one through Darren Lehmann's guard and he was out for 339, two shy of Hirst. It was, however, the first triple hundred by a Yorkshire batsman since Herbert Sutcliffe at Leyton in 1932.
So a nine-year relationship with Yorkshire, which began when he was bowled for nine by Phil Newport of Worcestershire in 1997, has come to an end. In 88 first-class matches, Lehmann scored 26 first-class hundreds for the county, 8,532 runs and has an average of 68.77. Hirst, for all his records, scored his 32,000 runs for Yorkshire in 633 more matches at an average of barely 35.
This shows that Lehmann has finished his career with the highest average of any Yorkshire batsman (save a couple who played only a few games), although the averages of Boycott, Hutton and Sutcliffe (all of whom finished in the fifties) would have been much higher if they had sprung fully developed into the side as Lehmann did.
Darren Lehmann likes batting at Headingley so much that he just doesn't want to leave. The former Australia batsman, playing his final match for Yorkshire, began what will surely be his final innings at 11.25 yesterday morning and he is still there, more than seven hours later, on 338. Yorkshire have reached 608-6 in their crucial relegation decider with Durham.
Lehmann is four runs away from passing George Hirst's 101-year-old record score for Yorkshire, set against Leicestershire, and eights runs from beating Charlie McCartney's highest score by an Australian (345) in England. Justin Langer came within one boundary of breaking McCartney's record when he played briefly for Somerset in July. Lehmann is one year older than Langer and has a similar Test average of 45, yet he will be watching the Ashes from his sofa while Langer is opening the innings. England must be relieved, particularly Stephen Harmison who would have been bowling against Lehmann today if it wasn't for his latest injury.
The other lunchtime scores: Lancs were bowled out for 438 and Hants are 13-0 in reply; Sussex declared on 560-5 and Notts are 10-0; Essex are 446-9 against Leics and Worcs are 112-4 chasing Northants' 342 (all wickets to spin). Sussex and Essex are in tasting distance of their title and promotion triumphs.
At the close of Day 1 of the final round of championship matches: Sussex 420-5 (Goodwin 99); Lancs 333-7 (Law 79); Essex 322-6 (Foster 94*); Northants 342ao v Worcs (Sales 96, Batty 4-109) and Yorks 473-3 v Durham (Lehmann 261*)
Advantage Surrey in the battle for the title, then. Yorkshire have also taken a big step towards assuring their survival. Durham have 26 overs tomorrow in which to take six wickets and get maximum bowling points (before having to make 400 runs themselves) otherwise Yorkshire will be favourites to stay in the first division. No comment can be made on the second division promotion battle until Essex have had a bowl and Worcestershire a bat. More tomorrow.
Latest scores at tea in the crucial championship games: Essex 209-4 v Leics (Cook 120*); Yorks 316-3 v Durham (Lehmann 164*); Lancs 231-4 v Hants (Law 65*); Northants 261-5 v Worcs (Sales 88*) and Sussex 272-3 v Notts (Yardy 119).
As things stand in the three battles, Essex remain four points ahead of Worcs, Yorkshire have moved one and a half points ahead of Durham and out of the relegation zone, and Sussex have increased their lead over Lancs at the top of the championship to nine points. But it still remains winners take all.
I've not done a scores round-up for some time, largely because they took too long and I suspected that no one cared. But if you don't care about what is going on at Trent Bridge, Southampton, Headingley, Grace Road and Northampton, then you must really be an uncaring soul. The sort of person who doesn't cry when Bambi's mother is shot, perhaps, or who watches Brief Encounter for the gags.
For the rest of you, here are the lunchtime scores in the day's most vital games: Lancashire are 94-2 against Hampshire; Sussex are 94-1 v Notts; Yorkshire are 156-2 v Durham; Essex are 94-4 v Leics (Cook on 49 not out) and Northants are 105-3 v Worcs (Gareth Batty taking all the wickets).
Early days, too early for the champagne to go on ice in the Sussex dressing-room, but they will be happy with that. Essex need to pull their fingers out, although the fact that it is already taking spin at Northampton, with Panesar to bowl last, might terrify Worcestershire, who really have to win to take the last promotion spot from Ronnie Irani's boys. More to come at tea...
Well after we had talked up Mark Ramprakash's chances of finishing the season with a higher average than Don Bradman's record for an English summer in 1938, the lazy little so-and-so has decided to bunk off Surrey's final fixture against Derbyshire. "Ramprakash is being rested," says Surrey. Rested for what? Surely not for his winter appearances in Strictly Come Dancing. Surrey members might be entitled to ask questions about this, especially after Ramprakash also skipped the game against Essex at Colchester recently for "personal reasons" that some said were related to his contract negotiations.
Could his need for peace be anything to do with Ramprakash wanting to preserve his end-of-term average of more than 100? After all, he'd have needed 122 runs in two innings against the feared Derbyshire bowling attack to maintain his three-figure average. Could the thought of facing Steffan Jones have made him pause and consider whether it might be better to go to B&Q instead?
Imagine if Bradman, at the Oval back in 1948, had said to his Australia team-mates, "Sorry guys, don't fancy playing today. I only need four runs to retire with a Test average above 100 but I don't like the look of that pitch. Give someone else a game."
Back at the start of the season, we lamented the lack of all-rounders in the English game and pledged a big round of applause to whichever players could score 1,000 runs and take 50 wickets in the first-class game this summer. Clearly our applause was not sufficient incentive for, with one match to go, it appears that no one will reach the landmark.
Some 43 batsmen have made 1,000 runs and another ten or so are within one good knock of joining them. Only 16 bowlers have taken 50 wickets, but there are 15 who have taken more than 40. Yet no one appears in both lists. Batsmen who bowl, such as Lance Klusener (1,227 runs, 19 wickets) and Rikki Clarke (1,027 runs, 22 wickets) have let their second skill slip, likewise bowlers who bat such as Shane Warne (341 runs, 57 wickets). The closest by a street seems to be Mark Ealham, who played his last Test in 1998 and has made 692 runs while taking 46 wickets.
The prize should go to him, but maybe the award for best all-rounder should be given instead to Steven Davies, the young Worcestershire wicketkeeper, who so far has scored 1,039 runs, taken 64 catches and stumpings and earned himself a place at the age of 20 in England's back-up squad for the Ashes.
There is a saying at some golf courses that you need to make your score on the front nine, because all those birdies will leak away as you come back home. The same probably applies for the County Championship if you are Lancashire. Yet again, Lancashire come to the end of the season in contention for their first title since bodyline was the big issue of the day. Yet again, the rain is likely to frustrate them with all today's play at Old Trafford being washed out.
 Having lost the C&G final to Sussex, it looks as if the championship is heading south too. When I brought up with my colleague Mark Giles the chances of his county winning the title three weeks ago, he grunted and said that there was more chance of Oldham getting promoted. Lancashire needed to be a good 20 points ahead of Sussex with two games to go to be in with a chance of winning. The club is considering moving from Old Trafford. Might Cairo make a better, less wetter location?
Lancashire are considering loaning James Anderson to Glamorgan for the last match of the season. It's probably the only chance he has of getting a game.
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Eighty-three years ago, when Jack Hobbs was trying and struggling to match WG Grace's record of first-class hundreds, there was a famous London newspaper headline saying simply "Hobbs fails again". I could be wrong, but I think it was after he had made a fifty. Hobbs took a month to get the historic hundred, with expectation building to fever pitch, and when it eventually came at Taunton there was immense relief, especially as he had been 91 not out overnight.
